


there's a light (there once was a light)

by inamamagic



Category: Jane the Virgin (TV)
Genre: Canon compliant (ish)?, F/M, Written before S02E11
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-31
Updated: 2016-01-31
Packaged: 2018-05-17 10:54:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,546
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5866612
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inamamagic/pseuds/inamamagic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Petra reminisces (about her and Rafael's relationship, amongst other things).</p>
            </blockquote>





	there's a light (there once was a light)

 

i.

 

It’s really not too hard to start dating Rafael after Lachlan. After all, despite all his irresponsibility, he _is_ Emilio’s son. That’s a great deal more security than she can get from being Lachlan’s wife. If Milos comes back, she’ll have the might of the Solanos on her side. No one can touch her.

But then there are the solid facts to consider. Rafael is pretty easy on the eyes. Lachlan – well, it’s not that he isn’t, but compared to Rafael… _eh._

It’s not all looks either. With Lachlan, Petra managed, the best she could, but other than the knowledge that he respected her and was willing to do anything for her, there was really nothing else tying her to him. They had a decent enough friendship, and their sex life was definitely above average, all good things when you’re trying to affix yourself to a man you don’t love to keep away from your psychotic ex.

But with Rafael? There’s something more than that. Where Lachlan is all cold hard lines, Rafael is grand curves and swirls and whirlpools of emotion that Petra just _cannot_ avoid. With Lachlan, compartmentalising was never an issue. But with Rafael? Rafael, who’s heart and fire touches absolutely everything he comes across?

It’s impossible.

Of course, Petra isn’t to know all this, the first time they sleep together. Even so, when she drifts off, she feels something close to comfort for the first time since coming to the United States.

 

ii.

 

The wedding is a dream. It’s like she’s always imagined it would be, but never hoped to have. Her gown is four feet of exquisite Oscar de la Renta, but she thinks that Rafael’s the one that’s looking radiant in his suit as she walks up the aisle.

When he’d proposed, she’d been shocked into a daze that had lasted up to a week. She’d been having misgivings about her choice for a month or so now, wondering whether playboy Rafael was really the best way to a secure life. After all, Lachlan, despite having had to grovel his way to the top, is a more cut and dry kind of guy, and would’ve never strung a woman around just to drop them a week later.

Well, at least he wouldn’t have before Petra left him for Rafael. Word on the street now is that Lachlan Moore is more of a player than Rafael Solano ever was (although not nearly half as successful).

But those are just rumours.

It’s a good thing that Magda had been around to keep Petra’s head on her shoulders because she almost lost it in the madness of wedding planning. When the pre-nuptial negotiations had begun, she’d made sure to include a ten million dollar payout clause, “so you can save yourself from this sham marriage and do votever you vant.”

But what Magda doesn’t know, is that this marriage is fast becoming less of a sham than Petra had planned.

Rafael wants to honeymoon in Malta, but Petra is dead set against setting foot in Europe, so they end up going to Dubai, and then stopping by in Jordan for a while before going on a tour of Damascus in Syria, and then flying back home. Rafael is satisfied, and Petra – well, she’s just happy to be alive.

The tension that had left her since the wedding is back in full force, and for the first time when Rafael draws close to her, she moves away from him, feigning sleep.

True sleep doesn’t touch her until the first rays of light begin to peek into the room.

 

iii.

 

When the test comes back positive, she feels shock like she hasn’t since Rafael proposed. When she tells Magda, she simply sets about giving Petra instructions on what to eat, when to rest, and how to exercise.

Rafael however, is elated. They hold dinner for the family that evening, and even Emilio seems genuinely pleased, something Petra never thought was possible. Luisa sits up with them all night, making plans for the baby and talking about how she and Alison are going to be the cool aunts and spoilt the child rotten, and it’s way past midnight when they finally get to bed, and Petra finally allows herself to relax in Rafael’s arms.

When they’re on the beach, and she’s knitting the hat for the baby that Rafael insists on calling a Frisbee, it almost feels like things can be _normal_ , for once. Like Milos won’t hunt her down, and she can actually be Petra for the rest of her life, and not Natalia, never again Natalia.

When they find out it’s a boy, Rafael’s happiness is infectious, and the entire staff of the Marbella feel it too. Everyone seems to smile brighter, and even Petra is more inclined to be nicer to people, even when they’re as irritating as Scott.

They set up the nursery and put the cot in front of the window, so that the baby can have an ocean view, and they paint the walls as blue as the sky outside (or, as Rafael says, as blue as her eyes), and as they set up the changing table, Petra thinks to herself that she cannot possibly be happier than this.

When the cramps come for her, she can’t stop screaming, because even though she knows it was too good to last, she doesn’t want to wake up from this dream.

 

iv.

 

When Rafael gets cancer, she thinks, for the first time in a long time, that she would take being hunted down by Milos back in the Czech Republic over the nightmare that is fast becoming her life.

In the beginning, she sticks by him, even though she’s barely over the trauma of her miscarriage. She throws herself into helping him, attends every chemotherapy session, tries to figure out what kind of food he can keep down, soothing him to sleep on difficult nights, but then, the inevitable happens, and she just snaps.

It’s Zaz that finds her crouched in the corner of their bathroom, and it’s Zaz that picks her up and carries her to bed, and it’s Zaz that’s still sitting next to her in the morning, asking if she wants breakfast and making sure she’s alright before he leaves for the day.

She doesn’t speak to him for two days after that. The guilt is too much for her to handle on top of everything else, she can’t be leaning on someone when Rafael needs her so much.

But she and Raf barely speak nowadays, and as he moves closer to recovery, he spends more time with Luisa, who keeps filling his head with all sorts of spiritual nonsense that Petra thinks is bullshit and knows is poisoning her marriage because all she wants is for things to go back to normal, and Luisa’s wild ideas are getting in the way of that. Rafael seems less interested in the things they used to do, less interested in being around their old friends. Less interested in her.

When Zaz convinces her that caregivers need to be taken care of too, she finally gives in.

 

v.

 

After Rafael recovers, things never do go back to normal. He starts to avoid her, using work as an excuse, but Petra hasn’t been married to this man for four years for nothing. She knows.

Magda pushes her to stick it out for a year, but Petra knows that things are too fragile to last that long. Knowing that they can’t have another child unless they use his sample, Petra ruminates over this for a few weeks, and eventually drinks her way to a decision. Save her marriage. Secure her future. That’s what’s most important right now.

Of _course_ Luisa would be around to ruin everything, as usual. Like it wasn’t enough that she ruined their marriage, she had to ruin their only chance at reconnecting too?

Before she can deal with this disaster, a multitude of things happens at once.

The sample takes, and someone else becomes pregnant with her husband’s child.

Said husband finds out about her affair and asks her for a divorce.

And just as she thinks she has been able to manipulate events to her favour, Zaz is murdered.

And Rafael just absolutely refuses to stay.

 

vi.

 

She deserves it really. After what she did to Lachlan. She deserves every inch of what she got.

She could’ve been content with him. Safe. And Lachlan would’ve still had his job in place because Rafael wouldn’t have been able to take it from him. Because he wouldn’t have had to deal with the loss of a perfectly good fiancée.

Petra snorts. She was obviously not a very good fiancée. Or a wife. Or a good person, actually. What kind of person cheats on their sick husband?

The kind who cheats on their fiancée, that’s who.

The line between security and emotion is beginning to blur for her. Magda would be furious if she found out. But Petra doesn’t care.

She sees Jane and Rafael walk across the lobby together, hands clasped as they laugh about something, and something breaks inside her all over again, but after years of suffocating her own feelings, it doesn’t feel as painful.

But she knows.

 


End file.
